my heart is home is where you are
by ember53608
Summary: it's been so long since he held her like this. the scratch of his stubble under her fingers makes her think, this is home. [boruto movie.]


I know there were some subtle hints of Naruhina in the Boruto movie, but I was still pretty bummed we didn't get to see the couple explicitly talk to each other outside of some short exchanges, so I wrote this to fill the gap. It's set after the events of the battle with the Otsutsukis, when Naruto might come back to visit Hinata in the hospital.

Read and review, please!

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Hinata can't be sure when he comes for her.

One moment, her husband is looking back at her from the blue of their son's eyes; the next, he is here, in the flesh, lying sideways next to her in a hospital bed.

His shirt is open halfway down, and her hand trails a broad path from collar bone to sternum to waistline. Three holes, off-centered but no doubt aimed with specific purpose, mar her husband's torso. Hinata can feel the depth of each one under her fingers.

Naruto meets her gaze as she looks up. His eyes are all calm oceans and content while hers swim in a violent sea of emotion, and Hinata realizes she never thought the tables would turn in this way. It seems that they've grown together somehow.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, but Naruto is quick to scoff, retorting, "For what?"

"My relatives."

He bursts into a cacophony.

"I am," Hinata insists. The bed frame shakes with her husband's raucous laughter, and she grabs onto his shoulders, fists her fingers in the tears of his shirt. When he finally looks back to her, she holds onto that, too.

"Believe me," Naruto says, "this is all well deserved." He takes her hand and touches it to his chest. The small ridges of exposed and uneven flesh send an unwelcome shiver through her, and Hinata shuts her eyes, pictures the moment she let her husband slip away from her fingers.

The line that lies between "before" and "after" isn't something she can even distinguish—there echoes only the feeling of his hand in hers, of his fingers rubbing small circles into the center of her palm.

"It was about time I had some sense knocked into me," he murmurs. His nose brushes up against hers.

Hinata opens her eyes to stare back at him, silvery moons digging deep into his gaze. Every sentiment, every _word_ left unspoken between them since he took upon this worldly weight is etched into that tender movement. Naruto's bandaged fingers wrap around hers as if in apology, and Hinata—

—Hinata will have none of it. She takes a moment to bottle the pacific in her husband's eyes, store it somewhere deep for rainy days. And then she breathes, _"No."_

No number of sleepless nights and disjointed schedules, of silent hours and hesitant looks, can add up to the three beams that once plunged through his chest. Hinata looks up and sees a man of immeasurable courage and _love_ lying before her, and a tear slips past her cheek as she reaches up to touch his face.

"You weren't angry with me?" he whispers. His eyes fall to a cut that slices deep across her shoulder, but she turns him away from the war wound and touches his mouth instead. The cracks in his lips are flaky under her thumb, but she finds that she likes the texture, and she leans in for a kiss.

"I missed you," she answers softly.

Naruto chuckles, a wry smile pulling at his lips. "You weren't the only one." He lifts and turns his head back to face the bared door, through which a small sliver of Boruto's frame can be seen.

The blond genin swings his legs in tempo to the excitement that carries his voice, and there lies no doubt that Himawari sits right beside him, her eyes and ears all his for the taking. Their son has emanated nothing but pride and content since he set foot in Konoha, but both parents know there are still kinks to smooth out in the days ahead.

The work will never be easy, she realizes—but it will be worth it.

Naruto draws his lips to her ear and murmurs, teasing, "Maybe we should try for a third."

Laughter slips out of her mouth before she can catch it, so light like a bell that it sings within him. Hinata leans in to ghost a kiss over his throat, a smile blooming on her lips when he rumbles beside her. It's been so long since he held her like this. The scratch of his stubble under her fingers makes her think, _This is home._

"And when would we find the time to do that?" she whispers.

The breath hitches in his throat, and Hinata swears she feels a surge of heat crackle like a firework, travel all the way down his spine to somewhere low. She lazily hovers her tongue a few millimeters above his pulse point, the endless possibilities flickering to life before her eyes.

Naruto hums. "I can think of a few days."

Her smile only grows. "Oh?"

It's a challenge and a request wrapped neatly into one word, and God knows it's been several years since they felt young and wild, but she really wants for him to kiss her right now. To feel the gasp in her throat when he opens her with his tongue. To know the pink of her, inside and out.

"Yeah," he continues, voice like gravel. Their gazes track to the scars riddling his skin, the wounds that fester underneath far from being healed. Naruto sends her a sly grin and raises his eyebrow. "I've got some time to spare."

The laughter that bubbles up from her throat then quiets quickly when she closes the distance. Her fingers rake rows through the gold of his hair while Naruto cups his callused palms around her cheeks. Everything feels right for the first time in days, weeks, _months,_ and Hinata could not be happier for it. "Well, then," she murmurs, and she tugs his lower lip between her teeth.

"I guess this means we have a date."


End file.
